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Monday, 8 August 2016

Protest at NBC news over false Turkey coup bid coverage

Sibel
Edmonds and Newbud confront NBC News over false reporting

Sibel
Edmonds and her team at Newsbud were the first to discover a false
news story put out by NBC News about Erdogan fleeing to Germany
during the recent coup attempt. Instead of just talking about it she
and a group from New bud travelled to New York to confront the news
giant and expose the falsehood.

While,
of course this event went unrported by any corporate media Russia’s
Sputnik and some alternative media did notice.It was mentioned in the weekend by Julian Assange on his RT interview.

NEW
YORK (AA) – Turkish Americans and media members on Thursday
demonstrated outside the world headquarters of NBC News in New York,
slamming the organization for a false report on the night of a recent
putsch attempt in Turkey.

NBC
News set off a chain reaction that misled the world during the July
15 coup attempt when it posted tweets that were later deleted that
claimed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fled Turkey and was
seeking asylum in Germany.

The
news organization cited an unnamed "senior U.S. military
official" for having received the information.

The
tweet went viral on social media and was widely used by traditional
media organizations -- all of which sourced NBC News, carrying the
false information to millions of readers, including Turks, at a
critical time during the deadly coup bid.

Sibel
Edmonds, a Turkish-American dual citizen and former FBI translator,
told reporters in front of Rockefeller Plaza that NBC News was "no
longer a news organization".

"It
is an extension of Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon; this is
what they proved here," Edmonds said. "They actively and
directly participated in a coup."

Edmonds,
who is the founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition,
argued that by taking so long to apologize for a material error in
its reporting, NBC News proved it was indeed not a mistake.

"If
it was just an innocent mistake, all they had to do was to issue a
statement" apologizing, and that would be an example of ethical
journalism, she said.

"For
two weeks, despite receiving mail, letters, from not only us but
other journalists, they are refusing to do that. And what does that
say? That says, NBC News corporation is no longer categorized under
news agency."

The
group attempted to contact the chairman of NBC News chairman and
other top executives who were all given prior notice.

Protesters
were met, however, by a security guard who said he would convey the
group's message to his bosses.

In
an interview with Russia Today, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange also
expressed outrage at NBC News coverage of defeated coup, accusing it
of helping the coup attempt.

"What
the hell is going on there?" Assange said of the outlet's
coverage the night of the attempted coup. "That went all around
the world, and was used to further the chance of success of the
coup,” he said in reference to the report of Erdogan seeking
asylum.

The
'news' outlet tweeted that the Turkish President had fled to Germany
to seek asylum at a critical point in the failed coup attempt that
dramatically increased the chances of the government overthrow bid.

This
week, Turkish Americans and media figures loudly demonstrated outside
the world headquarters of NBC News in New York slamming the
mainstream US news outlet for its false report on the night of the
failed coup attempt in Turkey that dramatically increased the likely
that the government overthrow would succeed.

NBC
News triggered a firestorm after initiating a domino effect among
media outlets after incorrectly reporting that Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan had fled Turkey and was seeking asylum in
Germany in a number of later deleted tweets posted in the thick of
the July 15 coup attempt.

NBC
cited an unnamed "senior military official" as the source
of the information which immediately went viral on social media and
was picked up by a number of traditional media outlets, all of which
sourced NBC News causing the misleading information to trickle down
to hundreds of millions of readers, including Turks, at a critical
moment in the deadly coup attempt.

It
has been widely speculated that the original source is US General
John Campbell who Islamist newspaper Yeni Safak pegged as "the
man behind the coup" in a front page article with the military
official's face plastered on its front cover.

"It’s
an extension of the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon; this is
what they proved here,” Edmonds said. “They actively and directly
participated in a coup."

In
an interview with RT on Friday, WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange
expressed outrage about the false reporting saying "What the
hell is going on there?"

"Turkish
newspapers are publishing stories around a theory that the United
States was behind the attempted coup, that US intelligence sources
have supported Fethullah Gulen, the head of the Gulen cult, and that
has been called by the Turkish government as the leader of the coup,"
said Assange.

"One
of the key evidence points cited by Turkish media is that in the
middle of the coup, NBC published that Erdogan was on his way to
Germany to seek asylum and they say that this was told to them by a
US military source so what the hell is going on there because that
went all the way around the world and went to further the chances of
success of the coup in Turkey because if the President is gone then
you’ve lost control," said the whistleblower.

Turkish
Police Block Access to NATO's Incirlik Air Base - Home of US Nukes

Several
hundred Turkish residents died in the bloody coup attempt after the
Turkish President made a desperate plea to the public, in an
interview on CNNTurk via FaceTime, where he called for the people to
take to the streets. The coup plotters, who called themselves the
"Council of Peace" and said that they were there to restore
democratic practices to the country, turned their weapons on the
protesting citizens.

In
total, over 60,000 people have been fired or arrested in the
post-coup purge with President Erdogan hinting at bring back the
death penalty for roughly 15,000 individuals imprisoned on charges of
treason.

This is the original item on this on Newsbud

This is a recent interview of Sibel on Turkey on the Lew Rockwell Show